KARACHI, April 19: Federal Minister for Ports and Shipping Syed Naveed Qamar said on Saturday that the government has no plan to privatise Port Qasim.

Talking to the media after being briefed by Port Qasim Authority (PQA) officials at the port, he, however, said that the option to privatise the PQ might be mulled in future.

It is yet to be decided that the land given to the port is owned by the federal government or Sindh government. He said that the government would conduct a probe into a corruption case of land sale by the PQA at Rs0.8 million per acre.

The minister said that the land sold to industrialists by the PQA was under a policy to boost industrialisation. He said that Saturday’s meeting was focused on employment, allotment of land and accounting system of the port.

He said that the Karachi Port and PQ were the gateway to economy and the government was evolving a comprehensive policy to improve shipping system. He said that Port Qasim had a capacity of establishing more terminals and berths.

To a question, Mr Qamar said that the PPP government would also give importance to an agreement made between the then government and dwellers of nearby villages when the PQ project was initiated.

An agreement was made in ZA Bhutto regime that the government would provide jobs to the residents of nearby areas at the port and also construct new houses for them whose villages and lands were included in Port Qasim.

The minister also said that a cement-handling berth would also be constructed at the port.

Earlier, PQA Chairman Rear Admiral (Retd) Syed Afzal briefed the minister about progress being made by the authority.

He said that during 2007-08, the PQA achieved a record cargo handling of 24.4 million tons, registering a growth of 13 per cent over the previous year.

For capacity enhancement, 10 private sector projects were being implemented as against three projects in last 24 years, he added.

He said that with the completion of these projects by 2010, the PQ’s handling capacity would rise to 82 million tons, showing an increase of 164 per cent while number of berths would be raised from 10 to 20. Simultaneously, the PQA was also striving for deepening of navigation channel to attract major shipping lines to the port, he added.

The PQA chairman said that so far 30 wheat ships had already been handled at the port and a total of 1.2 million tons of wheat had been handled so far.

He informed the minister that average wheat handling had been more than 7,400 tons per day.—PPI